How (and if) you vote is really the one and only thing politicians care about.

They care about appearing to care about it. In reality if they don't think you'll vote the right way they just prevent you from voting, like with a vaccine passport or an ID card. (See? Both sides covered)

There has never been a vaccine requirement for voting. It has never been voted on. It has never gone to committee. It has never been proposed.

If you nevertheless are certain that that was or is the goal of one of the US's two major political parties, then you've reached a perplexing conclusion based on, I can only guess, no evidence, evidence imagined, evidence misunderstood, or evidence contained in a source that should be tossed into the garbage can.

This is why it is important to vote in primary elections as well.

Voting the way you really want in primary elections might be counterproductive.

Let's say in the main election 45% of the population will vote for whatever candidate represents side X, 45% of the population will vote for whatever candidate represents side Y, and 10% is more-or-less in the middle.

If, during the primaries, side X votes for a far-X candidate, they will definitely lose the middle 10% to a moderate-Y candidate, leading to a strong Y victory. But if side X votes for a moderate-X candidate during the primaries, the main election will be moderate-X vs moderate-Y, and they have a pretty good chance of securing the slightly-more-than-half of the middle they need for an X victory.

Of course you now end up with a lukewarm moderate X victor who isn't going to represent your far-X views, but at least you're not dealing with an even worse Y-side victor.

The real solution is to get rid of the winner-takes-all system inherently resulting in a two-party election, but Good Luck doing that kind of overhaul!

Quibble: I think you're conflating "remove winner-takes-all" with "less spoiler effect". The first implies (some of) the second, but not vice-versa.

For example, ranked-choice voting would reduce the spoiler effect and allow you vote for your real choice, however it would not (on its own) change that races have a single winner, who eventually "takes all."

This matters because even if it's preferable to have both, ranked-choice is easier to introduce incrementally and with fewer amendments to various constitutions.

That all makes sense if things are one dimensional, but they aren't. There are tons of issues, and people don't break down into just X vs Y. It's multidimensional. Find the candidate who most represents your views, and vote for them. You may find, even if you consider yourself an X, that a lot of people who consider themselves a Y will also like your candidate.

It does not stop far X candidates becoming president though, does it? Your current president is surely not moderate?

The UK has winner takes all parliamentary elections but still has multiple parties represented in it. There seem to be a lot of other barriers to other parties in the US doing the same.

The UK is more geographically diverse than USA, so Scotland votes for their party and so on. USA doesn't have that, every part of the country votes very similarly, even the most extreme states still votes very similarly to each other.

> The choice between a galloping right wing and a stagnant center-right is no choice at all. American elections are a facade for decisions already made on top.

This critique had its heyday in the 2000 election. I can't fathom still holding fast to it. The last 26 years have been a continuing, relentless stream of evidence to the contrary.

All democracy is a "two party charade" then. Countries that have a dozen parties still have them form a left-wing and right-wing coalition in order to actually get enough seats to form a majority. I'd call those coalitions the real parties.